Frontline personnel among others infected by COVID-19 in AP,

tally crosses 1,000

Amaravati(AP), Apr 25 () Frontline workers engaged inthe battle against the spread of COVID-19 including doctorswere among the fresh cases of the virus reported fromAndhra Pradesh on Saturday, where overall number crossed the1,000-mark.

Two fatalities were reported, taking the toll to 31.

AP's overall positive cases of coronavirus stood at 1,016on Saturday.

In Kurnool, two doctors working in the government generalhospital and a police sub-inspector (SI) in Vijayawada citytested positive for the deadly virus, official sources said.

Further, in Vijayawada, a police sub-inspector and 60personnel were placed under quarantine.

A scare was triggered in the State Covid Command ControlCentre in Vijayawada after a biomedical engineer working theretested positive on Friday.

Government officials, right from the Special ChiefSecretary (Health) have been functioning from this premisesfor over a month now, monitoring the Corona managementmeasures across the state.

Five other colleagues of the biomedical engineer, howevertested negative for the virus.

These staffers were attached to the AP Medical Servicesand Infrastructure Development Corporation.

The latest government bulletin said 26 patients weredischarged from hospitals after recovery.

Significantly, the north coastal district of Srikakulamalso joined the list on Saturday, registering its first threecases after remaining free of the infection all these days.

The district did not report a single case of COVID-19till Friday, sources added.

After Kurnool and Guntur districts, Krishna is now fastbecoming the pandemic's hotbed in the state as 25 fresh caseswere registered in the last 24 hours.

There was no let up in Corona spread in Kurnool as 14more cases were added, taking the total to 275.

Incidentally, the two districts registered one newCOVID-19 death each, the bulletin said.

Vizianagaram is now the only district in AP not to beaffected by Covid-19, yet.

Anantapuramu registered five fresh cases in the last 24hours, followed by Kadapa and SPS Nellore with four each andEast Godavari and Guntur districts 3 each.

AP is now second to Tamil Nadu in number of Covid-19cases but top in the number of deaths (31) in south India.,with the former reporting 1755 cases and 22 deaths as ofFriday.

According to official sources, the state is at the bottomamong five southern states in terms of recovery rate with 16.8per cent.

While Kerala is on top with 73.6 per cent recovery, TamilNadu comes next with 49.3 per cent.

AP still has 814 "active" coronavirus cases after thedischarge of 171 patients and death of 31.

Between Friday and Saturday, 6,928 samples were tested the highest per day count so far while the aggregate numberof tests till date was 61,266. DBV SAROH ROH